This School in a small Louisiana town Closed in 1991

Sunset High School, Sunset Louisiana

Date added: March 06, 2024 Categories:

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Like the citizens of many rural Louisiana communities, the residents of Sunset and the surrounding area were slow in making free public education available to children. In the years following the Civil War, the prevailing attitude was that education should be the responsibility of the family or church rather than of state or local government. As a result, there was very little money for public education and no real governmental support. Although a Catholic school of high quality, Sacred Heart Academy, existed in nearby Grand Coteau, the average citizen could not afford to send his or her daughters there, and the institution provided no facilities for boys. Thus, poor-quality one-room schools, often built by local citizens, furnished the only schooling available for the majority of the area's children.

Sunset opened its first one-room school in 1904. A historic photograph shows the facility to have been a crude, windowless, board and batten structure with a brick chimney at one end. Before long the school moved to a private home, then floated to three different sites before finding a permanent location in 1906. In that year, Sunset residents built a two-story wooden school costing $10,000. Children from nearby rural hamlets and farms joined Sunset residents in attending. Because it offered only grades one through seven, the school was considered a junior high. Education for most children in the Sunset area ended at this point, with many joining the workforce. Continuing their education at the Opelousas High School, located approximately eleven miles to the north was not an option for the majority of the area's pupils. The cost of boarding children in the latter community was more than most families could bear, and the town was considered far away at a time when roads were poor and transportation often unavailable.

The first evidence of interest in building a new facility for Sunset is found in the St. Landry Parish School Board minutes for January 7^th, 1924. At that meeting the board created and defined the territory of the Sunset School District and ordered a special election to determine taxpayer support for a $30,000 bond issue to fund a new school. The outcome of this election is unclear. What is Known is that a new election, seeking approval for a $60,000 bond issue, was held on August 25^th, 1925. This proposition passed with 96 yeas and 29 nays.

The Sunset taxpayers' vote to fund the new brick school reflected an important trend. The transition from frame school buildings to "modern" brick facilities is a recognizable chapter in the history of public education in Louisiana, with the latter universally by their very nature considered to be better. The Annual Report of the State Department of Education in Louisiana for 1924-25 bragged that the number of brick school buildings in the state had grown from 40 in 1900 to 388 in 1925. By way of explanation, the report noted: "In the earlier years the custom was to erect cheap frame buildings. The custom now is to use permanent materials... ."

It is clear that Sunset's new brick building represented an improvement in the physical plant, which translated into a considerable improvement in the quality of public education provided. The facility contained an administrative office and fifteen large, well-lighted classrooms with accompanying cloakrooms. In addition, the opening of the new building allowed education officials to convert the old wooden school into a gym, providing space for physical education and athletic competition for the first time. More importantly, there was finally physical space available to offer high school courses. Because educators felt the school should offer traditional classes as well as provide students with practical life experiences, the high school curriculum focused on academic and college preparatory courses but also emphasized home economics and vocational agriculture. (The latter classes were taught in house-like "cottages" erected nearby soon after the brick school was completed; these no longer survive.) So many students took advantage of the opportunity to attend high school that three teachers were needed: the first class graduated in 1927. The elementary grades were also well attended, requiring the hiring of nine teachers. Many of the younger children spoke French at home, and administrators' insistence that they speak English at school helped them to master that language. The school's total enrollment for its first year was 449, and many of these pupils came from outside Sunset. A historic photograph shows horse-drawn as well as motorized school buses that were employed to transport students from Grand Coteau, Cankton, Bristol, Lewisburg, Shuteston, Frozard, Maree Brule, and Bosco to the school.

The Sunset building served all grades until 1938, when a one-story classroom building was constructed nearby. At that time the high school moved to the new quarters, leaving the elementary students to occupy the 1926 structure. As time passed more buildings were added to the campus. Elementary courses were taught in the 1926 building until 1991, when the consolidation of parish schools forced the closure of all the classrooms in Sunset. The institution now belongs to the Town of Sunset, which hopes to restore the building for use as municipal offices.

Building Description

Sunset High School (1926) is a two-story masonry structure with a basement. It is positioned at the center of a small educational complex located in the northeast corner of the St. Landry Parish town of Sunset. Some alterations have occurred on the interior, but the exterior is unchanged.

The institution's floor plan is typical of the period. It consists of rows of large classrooms (with accompanying cloakrooms) flanking a long hallway which extends the width of the building on the first and second floors. Staircases are placed at each end of this hall. Interesting features found in all interior spaces include vertical beaded board wainscot, picture rails, pressed metal ceilings, and nine-light transoms above doors. A low, above-ground basement story is subdivided at the rear but inaccessible in the front. The subdivisions include boys' and girls' restrooms (the latter entered from outside the building) located in the basement's rear corners, and a boiler room in part of the rear basement's central area.

The building's facade is articulated in three parts, a long central section flanked by projecting wings or pavilions. In addition, the central entrance is articulated to resemble a pavilion but does not project. It features pilasters flanking an arched entrance with a brick-filled tympanum above a glazed double door. Each side pavilion is distinguished by corner brick pilasters that wrap around two sides of the building; similar pilasters anchor the school's rear corners. However, at the place where the entrance to the girls' restroom is located, the basement level's corner is open, with rusticated piers supporting the floors above. Rustication (hidden behind vegetation on the facade but visible on the sides and rear) also distinguishes the basement story. A brick parapet featuring curved sections above the entrance "pavilion" and side pavilions outlines the roof, while a corbeled brick cornice outlines the structure on all elevations except the rear. A notable feature is the series of large nine-over-nine windows (usually arranged in groups of four or five) which provide light to the classrooms. Paired windows pierce the central "pavilion" on the second level. All of the windows are outlined by decorative brick bands.

Alterations have occurred only on the interior. The most important is the conversion of three former second-floor classrooms into two large science laboratories with paneled walls, tiled ceilings, and built-in cabinets. Another notable change is the loss of all original doors. Less significant modifications include the subdivision of one downstairs classroom into four offices, the removal of a wall between two spaces in the administrative office, the subdivision of one cloakroom, the removal of shelves from some of the other cloakrooms, the placement of carpet over the floors, and the installation of fluorescent lights in the classrooms.